Pulling Away
by xDefyingGravity
Summary: Gabriella is pulling away from Troy and he has no idea why, no matter how hard he trys, she won't let him in. What is causing her to be so distant? TxG Oneshot.


_okay well this is my first story, i'm kinda new to all this so be kind, wait no, be brutal, if you're kind I can't get better. (: so yeah go read and if you feel up to it leave me a review, i'd love to know what you thought._

**disclaimer: you really think i own a Disney movie?**

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She had distanced herself from him, cut off all connections completely. The fact that he had no idea why she was doing this was what really upset him. To say he was frustrated was an understatement. He had thought that he had enough of her trust for her to come to him with her problems, not ignore him completely, I mean they had been together for a year for crying out loud and yet here he was trying to figure out why she wouldn't talk to him.

He thought it would be easy to find out what was wrong with her, but she had obviously had practice at avoiding people. He rarely saw her. In homeroom she moved back to her old seat at the back of the class and always arrived late so he had no chance to talk to her. This was one of the things that worried him, she was so set on keeping away from him she was willing to jeapourdize her perfect attendance record. She had also started taking the bus home after school, something she hated doing as the bus was always crowded, but it seemed she would rather face this than let him take her home in his truck. It was breaking his heart because he could see when he looked round at her during homeroom, which was now all the time because he was so worried, that she was hurting inside, she was empty and there was nothing that she would let him do about it.

As she was super smart and was in all the advanced classes there was no way for him to talk to her during lessons and by the time he got to her room at the end of a period she had disappeared into the crowds of people trying to get to their next lesson. He tried asking Taylor her best friend and fellow brainiac if she knew anything, but sadly Taylor only told him that she had distanced herself from her too and wouldn't even talk to her about school work. He also noticed that she never ate in the cafeteria and seemed to disappear completely during the lunch hour. He was so desperate he convinced his dad to let him out of a free period work out so he could try to find her. He tried all the places she would normally spend time in, like the library, the rooftop and he even tried the auditorium, she was getting too good at hiding from him. It was safe to say that he was scared, scared of what was happening to her and scared that maybe she was staying away from him because she didn't want to be with him any more.

One evening he had gone to the Montez household hoping to corner her into telling him everything, but instead of Gabriella answering the door he came face to face with Ms Montez. He had an overwhelming sense of deja vu when he was turned away, as it was exactly what had happened when he had upset her during the spring musical call backs. He then began to think that maybe it was something that he had done that was causing her to act like this. This thought made him act drastically, although he respected Maria Montez he would do anything for his girlfriend, so against her wishes he creeped into the backyard and scaled the tree and landed on the balcony. He noticed straight away that this plan had failed, she obviously knew that he would try this as she had pulled her drapes across and he noticed when he tried the handle that she had locked the doors, something he had always asked her to do but was now frustrated that she had done so. Although he knew it was no good he tried calling to her desperately trying to convince her to talk to him, it worried him more when he heard her sobs through the door. It tore him apart knowing he couldn't comfort her so instead he sat on the balcony until she had cried herself to sleep, or that was what he assumed had happened.

The next day when he saw her his heart crumbled that little bit more, she looked broken, to him she was still beautiful but he could tell that she wasn't his Brie, today he was determined he would do everything possible to get her to talk to him. He left homeroom early getting a lavatory pass from Ms Darbus but instead of going to the bathroom he waited by her locker, he knew she had a free period, as they usually spent it together, but would come to get her books for her second period at the end of homeroom. The time seemed to drag by but eventually the bell sounded signifying the end of homeroom, he moved away from her locker slightly knowing that if she saw him there she would make a detour to avoid him. When she arrived he waited slightly just to watch her, the way she moved was all wrong, she seemed nervous and any small movement around her made her jump. When the crowds around them thinned out slightly he made his way towards her, using the locker door he caged her in slightly, he wasn't going to let her run away from him. When she felt his presence she froze, he tried getting her to calm down by soothingly touching the small of her back but this gesture just made her flinch. Now that he had the chance to talk to her he found that he had nothing to say, so he turned her slowly to face him, it felt good to be in such a close proximity to her after being away from her for so long, he refrained from scooping her up into his arms and kissing her senseless, he could see that that wouldn't help the situation. He noticed that she still hadn't looked at him and so he gently tilted her head upwards to gain eye contact, although she resisted at first eventually her brown eyes met met his blue ones. Her eyes were what usually portrayed her mood, but today there was nothing behind them, they were lifeless and had lost most of their warm colour. There were also tears starting to build up and she desperately started to blink them back so that they didn't spill over onto her pale cheeks but her efforts were in vain when a tear spilled over and slowly started to roll down her cheek. Impulse took over and he slowly brought his hand up to wipe the tear away, the moisture caused the make-up she was wearing to smudge,he kept soothingly rubbing her cheek with his thumb, which cause most of the cover up to come of in his hand what he saw horrified him. The make-up had been used to hide the bluish black bruise that appeared to cover half of her face, at seeing this he brought both hands up to cradle her face so he could get a better look. When she realised that he had noticed what she had desperately tried to hide from him, more tears spilled over and she darted out from underneath his arms and ran down the corridor sobbing, leaving all her possessions behind her. He was frozen in place, horrified that anyone would think to hurt his Brie, he was then overwhelmed with anger and proceeded to take his frustration out on the locker.

That was how his dad found him, throwing punches at the locker and with tears spilling down his cheeks, whilst being pulled into a hug he broke down, sobs took over his body knowing there was nothing that could help his dad silently comforted him. When he had calmed down and explained everything he quickly found himself in the principles office explaining everything several times over, a search was then sent out to try and find Gabriella as it wasn't safe for her to be in the school by herself, her mother was also called. Troy felt helpless, he had failed her, he had said he would always protect her and he hadn't, is that why she wouldn't talk to him because she knew he wasn't the best for her? When she was finally brought to the principles after what seemed like forever he couldn't look at her, he didn't want to see her disappointment in him and he slowly got up to leave as he knew they would want to talk to her in private, but when he got to the door he heard her slight whimper and turned to see her silently pleading for him to stay with her. The tears were streaming down her face and he knew then that he had misinterpreted her actions, she had been avoiding him because she had been threatened, not because she chose to. She needed him, and who was he to refuse, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and allowed her to cry away her pain, it hurt him to see her cry but he knew it needed to be done, for comfort he placed soft kisses into her hair, he let some of his own tears spill over again, but this time he was crying because he was so happy to have her back in his arms again. When her mother arrived Troy was asked to leave but she wouldn't let him, she had missed him as much as he had missed her, Ms Montez saw how distressed her daughter was at the thought of being away from him that she allowed him to stay, although he wished he hadn't. After a lot of coaxing she finally told them what had happened, hearing and seeing what she had been put through over the past weeks made him feel physically sick, the bruises in the shapes of hand prints along her arms were the last straw, he almost lost it there and then but knew he had to be strong. Her story did explain why he could never find her at school, she told them how her bullier always dragged her off campus and blackmailed her, if she put up any kind of fight she was beaten. He didn't fail to notice that throughout her story she didn't mention a name, the principle noticed it to as this was his next question, at this she stopped talking and more tears spilled out from the sides of her eyes, whatever they had threatened her with had worked, she refused to tell us anything, the questions kept coming at her though and he could tell that she was scared. He asked to talk to her privately and proceeded to lovingly convince her that if she told them who had hurt her they could be expelled from school and wouldn't be able to hurt her again, she seemed to believe him but it was hard for her, she broke down in his arms but eventually uttered a name. He breathed a sigh of relief, he knew it would take time but he now knew that things would be ok again, they may not go back to the way they were before but he had his Brie back and she was safe, and that was all that mattered to him.

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___well if you made it this far thanks for reading,_ i read over this again and i really don't think its good enough so i'm real nervous about posting it. if you all agree with me and think its awful please tell me and i'll remove it and go back to just reading stories.

_thanks, amber. (:_


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